


Stardust: Into the Dark

by knightofdei



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Inspired by tg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 03:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11683371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightofdei/pseuds/knightofdei
Summary: Percy Cezary has been trying his whole life to get to be a fleet commander in the Federation, now he's serving his first role as an officer, but the Warsaw is far from an ordinary vessel. It's missions are even stranger, and his commander is his former classmate. Is he actually ready to take on the stars like this?





	1. Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> This entire work is heavily inspired by a COYA I found on a /tg/ thread once that has just captured my imagination: Stardust. I've taken my own personal liberties with each of the characters to define them as I want, but the core came from there.

I sit in the appropriate docking bay, waiting for my escort. Officially, I serve on that ship and have every right to be on it, but some things are more important than the legal reality. In a tradition at least as old as the Federation, a slim woman in body armor came up and saluted to me. Responding with ingrained reaction, I salute back.  
"Chief of Security, Lt. Jenny Larue, to escort Executive Officer Percy Cezary to the Warsaw." She said, in a crisp voice. Dropping the salute, with the Lt. following suit, I reply back.  
"Thank you, sec-chief, lead the way." To which she turns in place, and begins striding towards the bay proper. I follow close behind, past the standard military security cordon. Her and I go through, our official ID's pinging us to clear the security without breaking stride.  
With that, I finally get a good look at the craft I'll be serving on, and it takes my breath away. It's a Wolf class destroyer, but it only barely looks like it. The usual hard angles are all either smoothed, or covered by grey rounded plates, all small angles and soft edges to scatter basic active scans. The long central portion seems sleek, despite only being about 1.5x as long as it is wide, and coming to a soft tapered wedge up front. A thick 'wing' protrudes from the broadside in a sweeping arc, stretching all the way from the front until it flares out near the back to form the wing body proper. The ship seems to sparkle with reflected lights from the space station. It's a dark, dull grey color, almost black, with a dull red stripe across the broadside 'wing' I can see that almost seems to shine, despite not reflecting any light at all. On closer inspection, Its side bristles with a variety of weapons, clearly equiped to engage whatever it may encounter, from a swarm of drones to a massive Battleship. A pair of long, almost rectangular barrels are visible mostly sunk into the hull for pasive storage that won't reflect active scans, on top of the wing. A pair of Rail Guns, on just this side? This ship could pack a massive punch for its size from very far away.  
I lose sight of the Warsaw as the Lt. leads me further on into the actual airlock tube. We cross the threshold and then travel down a central hallway toward the bridge of the ship, near the center. As soon as we reach the bulkhead airlock, it opens to let us through. Stepping into the central command center, or 3C, the Lt. shouts to the room.  
"Officer on deck!" A half-dozen crewmen stand from their desks or at their stations and salute towards the open door. Towards me. I continue walking in, as the Lt. stands and salutes from just inside the doorway. I walk towards the central console, where Tera and a man in a dark uniform are standing only at attention.  
"Lt. Commander Percy Cezary, Executive Officer of SO16 fleet, reporting for duty!" I say as clearly as I can, in what Tera calls my "parade-ground voice," as I snap to a salute. The dark-uniformed man steps up and salutes back. In a deep voice he responds.  
"Lt. Commander Dorian Krueger, Captain of the Warsaw, reporting." Finally, Tera steppes forward, and salutes me, saying.  
"Commander Tera en Chasteaux, Admiral of OS16 fleet, reporting. Welcome aboard Executive Officer. At ease!" She finishes louder, lowering her salute while addressing the entire room. Everyone orders arms, and resumes their work. Krueger turns and begins examining a display as Larue walks over to join him. Tera focuses back on me, and speaks.  
"Your personal affects have been transfered to your quarters in the officer section. I trust you will be able to find them. Is there anything you need for your duties?" She asks. Thinking for a second, I reply with my list of demands.  
"I am going to need several things. First, I want the complete crew roster with psych-evals and notable history; second, I need a full annotated inventory, with location of every item stored; third, I want our current schedule given to me." I finish, before a thought occurs to me, "Oh! I also would like to take a tour of the ship before we depart. Will all of this be acceptable?"  
. . . Tera considers my requests for a bit. I know that I'm asking for a lot here, but most of this should already be available in the ship's files. Tera continues to think though, making me nervous. Nothing I asked for us out of bounds, is it? I think, letting my nerves get to me. Still I keep a straight face. Finally, she seems to come to a decision.  
"Everything you requested is granted, and should be found on your personal terminal. Be advised, the current crew is considered skeletal, and to be augmented by independant contractors in the future, along with our material assets. I'm sure you'll have input on who we hire and what we buy, the budget is in the records you can access." She states clearly, to my relief. Before I can start to worry about the implications of being shorthanded and undersupplied, she continues in a more curious tone.  
"When would you like to conduct your tour of the vessel - I mean, fleet?" She asks, tripping over her words.  
"Baring any emergencies or outstanding issues I've not been informed of, my only duty today is to check in with the ship and prep my stations." I reply easily, having read my brief last night just before bed to make sure I remembered it. She nods, as if I just confirmed something important for her she already knew.  
"Come on then, I'll take you for a tour on the way to your cabin." She says quietly just to me, before leaning back and projecting across the room. "Commander Chasteaux is leaving the bridge, Lt. Commander Kreuger has the helm." To a general field of nods of acknowledgment, military crew too professional and focused to voice anything to such a routine order. With that, she turns andwalks towards the doors, saying over her shoulder.  
"Come on, we've got a ship to see."


	2. Crew Compliments

The ship was as impressive on the inside as it was in the outside. All of the tech on-board was like out of a science fiction holo. It was all brand new and the top of the line. No wonder we didn't have more ships, this one alone must cost as much as an entire normal picket fleet. I'm not sure if a Battleship cost more, and those are all 4-5 times as big, usually at least a kilometer for the ventral beam! This ship was just under 250 meters long, but it still cost.  
It certainly was worth it though, if it fit the specs. I'd looked it up earlier in my cabin, and the ship could perform at least as good as anything in its class, all while overweight. The ship was clearly based off of a Wolf chassis, but it had been expanded and modified so much as to be a custom vessel, or an entirely new class. Maybe this is a standard class for special operations, and it's just classified so I've never heard of it? Either way, it can carry a lot. I think as I look over the cargo manifest. The last of it was being inspected by Fairley, the resident Mechanical Engineer, before getting loaded. This ship was carrying a full compliment of recon and coms drones, plus a pair of ATVs, a pair of Stryker Military Light Utility Vehicles, a light walker mech, and a friggen light Tank! On top of that, it also has a fighter in its hanger, plus an engineering hanger with space for another fighter or whatever needs fixing. That was only the vehicles. No wonder it all felt to roomy. Of course, part of that could be the skeletal crew. The whole ship was designed to only need around 10 people to run it smoothly. I'm not sure how to feel about that. I walk along the crew quarters, a hall that seems to stretch on, but each room is larger than standard, and there aren't that many of them. I don't think we could fit more than 45 people in between here and the officer wing, right off the bridge. Interrupting my thoughts, I almost bump into someone stepping out of their room. I think I recognise him from the profile picture, Billy something?  
"Ah, hello there, not many guys here in this tin can. My name's Bill Smith, what's yours?" He says with a bit of gravel and a lot of friendliness.  
"Hello there, I guess so." I agree. "My name is Percival Cezary." I reply, taking his hand in front of him, expecting a strong handshake. I'm completely suprised as he pulls me over into a sideways hug and begins to walk. I'm forced to stumble along with him, though he holds me upright as he talks so some more.  
"Hoo-we is that a mouthful. I'm gonna call you Perk. Is that OK Perk? Cours' i-tis. So Perk, you been down to the bar yet? 'Course not, you must be new on the ship if I ain't seen you before! Come on, we're having a drink! The bartender's great at gettin' you a nice good beer or tonic, just not too great at preppin' grub. Don't tell her I said that! Still beats cracking open an MRE I suppose, which is what I expected, signing on to work with the spooks, but this is practically a vacation suite! Ha!" He just goes on and on. I try to nod and make agreeable noises occationally, but I'm not sure he even notices.  
"Laurie! A stout on me, and something good for my new friend Perk here!" He shouts as you both go through a door, right next to my ears.  
"Coming right up, and it's miss Parsons to you!" A softer, but not quite feminine voice shouts back. Bill just laughs, then drops me on a stool at the bar, before sitting down. As soon as he's comfortable, miss Parsons puts down a dark drink in front of him, then turns to me.  
"So what am I serving you, and who's tab is it going on, 'Perk'." She says, accenting the last word. Without thinking, I place my order.  
"Got any Spirytus?" I ask. "If so I'll take a shot of that." I order, then as an afterthought. "My name is Perci- Percy Cezary." Miss Parsons turns to look in the cabinet behind her for what I asked for at my order, then stops at my name and turns around.  
"You're going to have to show some ID for that, sir. Officers get pretty mad about someone using their tab without permission."  
Casually, I pull out my wallet, and present my ID chit to miss Parsons. She inspects it for a second, before running it over a scanner in the bar. A light flashes green, and she seems satisfied.  
"Here you go, looks like you're legitamate." She says, handing me back the chit. As I'm putting it back into my wallet, something hitting my back sends me rocking forward, and I drop everything to brace against the bar.  
"Well I'll be dam-danged! I didn't know you were an officer!" He declares, then stops himself from slapping me on the back. Feeling embarrased for some reason, I quickly grab my chit, put it and my wallet away, and hunch my shoulders a bit.  
"It's nothing, we're on a skeleton crew right now, everyone on this ship will probably be in charge of the new guys once we fill it out." I deflect.  
"Ah, but not fer us ship crew if Dorian gets his way I hear! He wants to get us all kilt afore we can even get to drop his teams!"  
"You disagree with his selections?" I ask.  
"The man's a former spec-op with pilot trainin', he don't really understand ships none too well. All he's worried about is having enough soldiers once they get groundside."  
"We do have the mechanized capacity, should be a force-multiplyer. Besides though, isn't he right? This is a 'spec-ops' ship, primarily to carry our teams to their missions and back. Isn't everything else secondary?" I ask. As soon as I finish, Miss Parsons leans in and gets my attention.  
"Non of that 'Spiritus' stuff, but we've got Vodka, that OK?" I simply nod in responce, waiting on Bill's assessment. She makes a "hmm" of assent, then goes back to work behind the bar. I turn all of my focus back to Bill.  
He speaks like we hadn't stopped, "shore, but that's just an argument against more men, and for more 'ngineers! Who's gonna take care of all that kit? Plus, we'll never get to any objective in one piece if we follow his plan, let alone get to deploy all them shiny toys."  
"Why not?"  
"He doesn't want no navs! On a destroyer! That darn fool thinks you can have just one pilot handle it during combat on a ship this big."  
"Hey, I get that you're frustrated, but I am your CO, and I can't have you badmouthing your officers in front of me!" I snap, making sure to be swift in suppressing that sort of talk. The men need to trust their officers, not question their competance when the metal's flying.  
"Oh, cra- shoot. You're right, sorry sir. I still stand by the previous, we need more support staff, and more gunners! He's trying to propose an understaffed, but higher trained gunnery! Have you seen our armament? We'd never be able to use 'er properly like that. Just seems like a waste," he finishes, before catching himself, "sorry, a waste, sir."

"I can see what you mean, but do we need to be able to fire every gun at once? They're for very different situations."  
"Say that when we need ta cripple a carrier while being swarmed by drones, and I'll believe ya," he replies simply, "sir." I simply hum in response.  
"Aww don't worry, you seem ta have yer head on straight!" He says, dismissing any tension before we move onto more casual topics and get increasingly drunk through the night.

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely because I thought it would be fun to write, and is completely self-edited on my phone. Feel free to message me with corrections and suggestions!


End file.
